HealthWatch: Autism Clues-Seeing Inside the Brain

HealthWatch: Autism Clues-Seeing Inside the Brain

SEATTLE, Wash. (Ivanhoe Newswire) - More than two million Americans have autism and studies suggest prevalence rates increase 10 to 17 percent each year. Researchers are getting closer to understanding this mysterious disorder by looking side the brain.

It will affect one in every 88 children, but autism has no known cause and no cure.

Researchers at the University of Washington are looking for answers. They are using special glasses to measure a toddler's eye contact.

"It records what I'm seeing, so I can see whether a child is looking at my eyes or my mouth," Wendy Stone, PhD, Clinical Psychologist, UW Medicine, told Ivanhoe.

Doctors found between ages 3 and 10, children with autism and those with developmental delays had significantly less of an important brain chemical. However, by age 10, the autism group had normal levels, but the kids with delays were still low.

Scientists believe this study shows development isn't fixed in autism.

"We also found that, in many ways, children bloomed and grew and became really interesting and wonderful people," Annette Estes, PhD, Director, UW Autism Center, Susan & Richard Fade Endowed Chair, Research Associate Professor of Speech and Hearing Sciences, University of Washington, told Ivanhoe.

These new insights are bringing doctors another step closer to understanding a complex disorder.

Researchers are now studying three month old babies who have siblings with autism. They want to determine if very early alterations in brain cell signaling may precede early clinical symptoms of autism.

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